New Orleans Saints NFL Draft Day A Challenge Due to Goodell, Bounty Scandal

And, the New Orleans Saints first draft choice of 2012 goes to…what’s his name? Sorry, never heard of him.

This is sort of the type of response we might hear as the New Orleans team’s first draft pick is not until round three, in part, courtesy of the loss of its second-round draft choice imposed upon them by Commish Goodell after Bountygate emerged.

Not only are the number of draft choices reduced this spring but the Saints are hampered by the fact they are picking players with major holes needing to be filled, perhaps more than any other team in the league.

Use whatever metaphor you want—“hands behind their back”, “picking in the dark”, the Saints, only two years from its historic Super Bowl win now has no clue how many defensive players will be suspended due to Bountygate or for how long or when will the suspensions occur.

One might say the Commish does not want the Saints to even field a team this year, given the extent of the punishments, the amount of information it has publically revealed or shared with the players association, who are still looking for smoking guns, or smoking cleats.

Anyway, the tweets are alive today discussing these issues…and here’s their take:

Here we are on another draft day, and the Saints won't be selecting until the third round. Pro Bowler Jimmy Graham was the Saints' third-round pick two years ago.

There's no team out there that hasn't botched a first-round pick. Here's a reminder of just how poorly things can go.

One of the Saints' of old draft picks was kicker Russell Erxleben of the U. of Texas. If you're going to take a kicker 11th over-all, you want to get more than five years out of him and zero Pro Bowls. In fact, you know what? You just don't take a kicker 11th over-all.

Erxleben was drafted as a punter and kicker, but after missing on field goal attempts said he wouldn't try field goals anymore because he couldn't take that much pressure.

In the Saints' heated, first draft for their first season in 1967, the team's GM and head coach came to blows over a draft selection.

One of my favorite draft stories was when the Falcons played it for laughs early in their history with a phantom selection.

The Falcons drafted John Wayne from Apache U. They told newsmen this choice was "a big, strong guy who has had some success in a couple of movie roles."

NFL commissioner then was Pete Rozelle didn't see the humor in the Falcons' choice and said the next team to make a fathom draft choice would be fined and lose that selection in the draft.

The league didn't have any bounty scandals back then. It was a fun league and the former players weren't suing the league for could amount to a billion dollars.

He has been sighted on stage with Jimmy Buffet at the French Quarter Festival and played in the Zurich Classic Pro Am on Wednesday. "Free Sean Payton" T-shirts were seen at both events.

Terms of the suspension don't allow him to have any contact with anyone in the NFL family, but he's able to take a TV role as a studio analyst. He is considering that, and he's currently coaching his son Connor's football team.

His son is 12 and his teammates are lucky football players and will never forget this season.

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Ed Staton is a former sports writer for the Times Picayune and New Orleans States Item. He also served as the New Orleans Saints Information Director. He has won 43 media awards in writing, design and photography.

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